Curtis Family Farming Grass-fed Beef in Southwest France

Exhausted and Shampooing

I feel like my French is getting worse. I took the pupple to the market today to see the big city. Something so simple like, “do you have another type of honey?” was an effort. It might be because I’m trying to get it right. It might be because I’m exhausted. Before my absolute drive to learn French-damn-it, I would say a noun, giggle and point. Occasionally, I’d toss in a verb to mix things up a bit. But now, I’m really trying. And consequently, I’m really failing. Progress is being made, I no longer speak in the past. Here I thought I was having conversations about the present times, but with my American ballet training among other influences, I mispronounce all verbs. For example, “She falls.” Me: Elle “tombay” … I can’t tell you how many “tombe pas de bourree” I’ve done in my life as a dancer and each one was articulated in the past. My ballet teachers said it wrong! I know this because I do a “Gym” class. My instructor uses words like “chasse.” In America, they would say “Shaw-say” ( see Rupaul,”Work”). Chasse is pronounced, “Shauce.” I love to shauce. I’m very talented with the shauce.

I didn’t go to gym this week because the family has been sick. Each year we pull in all sorts of ailments. With four kids spanning three schools, we collect a lot of viruses. We usually bat them away, but the last two weeks made us work. Donc, je suis crevé. Not je suis fatigue. No, je suis crevé. Exhausted. We’re all better now. Which brings me to the random entry from Little Book of Calm:

Shampoo Sans Shampoo

You access the calming acupressure points at the top of the head in the most pleasurable way through scalp massage – the actions of a shampoo, but without the shampoo.

Now if one goes through all the trouble to use “sans” one might as well follow through and use “shampooing.” Le shampooing. Shampoo is masculine. Fancy hair care products love to have the French translation on their produit. I’ve always known the words shampooing and après-shampooing thanks to Aveda and friends. For me, washing your hair has a much richer experience when you are shampooing. The lather has more weight. The hair is on the way to getting styled. Ton style. That’s “tone steel.” So really, The Little Book of Calm is telling you to “Shampooing sans Shampoo” and then you will feel calm. and learn more French. And blow some bubbles because it’s sunny.